Scavengeroogle: A Google Maps Scavenger Hunt To Waste More Of Your Time On

This was a slippery, elusive little kiss that many people had trouble with. I had a feeling it would be tough though. Jeremy R’s original word clues did not provide the pun (”Simple, Ought” = “Simplot”) and only mentioned the potato king:

“Chocolate kiss for the potato king”. Or something like that. This little lake sits on the massive lawn of J.R. Simplot, the man who sells McDonald’s most of their fries. Even the Boise locals won’t know the lake (or pond I guess), although the potato king clue might tip them a little.

I had thought it would be too difficult without additional information, and even with the added pun it might be difficult. Nevertheless, Oregonians seemed to benefit slightly from knowing about that company. Justin said:

Being from Oregon, I got the clue right away. It refers to J.R. Simplot, who founded a company that makes potatoes. It took under five minutes, it just happened to be in the first place I found in Boise.

Steve M. also notes:

Started at 9:13 Ended at 9:15 i fell right on top of it . i think being that i live in oregon i knew about the idaho potatoe thing thats why i got it so fast .But maybe it had more to do with luck lol . have a good day

Wait, but how does living in Oregon clue you into knowing about potatoes in Idaho… is it just by proximity? Interestingly, two of our most popular locations for clues have been Texas and Idaho… I think the east coasters are starting to feel left out so I will try and find some more clues not on the west coast soon.

Chris R writes:

This one was a bit difficult. “Simplot” led me south of Boise to the Sports Complex. Still a good clue.

When I did a refind, searching on Google first, I went east of Boise actually to Pocatello, Idaho (where they have some sort of track and field event). Going directly to Simplot Industries physical address puts you due south of the clue. But that wasn’t enough info for most people. It was tough to give clues without actually saying “look for Simplot”.

Jim M said:

Stuck in Coeur d’Alene for the longest time, until the Boise clue, then stumbled onto Simplot.

That’s interesting because I think someone else submitted a clue that had to do with Coeur d’Alene (was it you, Jim?) AND with potatoes as well.

Peter R picked up his first solution.

Took me about 20 minutes. Figured out Idaho right from the start, but got lost when I googled “Plain Idaho” (thinking simple=plain) but then I stumbled across the simplot, searched around Declo (his hometown).

I looked at the clue picture again, thought that it looked like a pretty big house so I just searched around Boise for a bit.

My First ONE!!!!!!!

I don’t blame you all for not getting the bad, bad pun; I had to make it up quickly so it wasn’t really that strong. Robert M wrote:

Got a real late start, so I got all the clues beforehand. Took me about 20 minutes.

Still don’t get the “Simple” part though.

And Ted S said:

Ohhhhhh…i get it now. Simple, Ought = Simplot. I was having a lot of trouble with that one. I found the lake first and then I was like, “Now what the hell does that clue mean?” I switched between satellite and map and they were out of sync (at least on my computer) but once i found the road it made sense. Tough clue, I like it.

Also interestingly, the clue is located right on a “googlemap seam” that is not stitched together exactly. (Probably could also be a reason the satellite and street maps are out of sync) That actually threw me a bit, because I was seeing double of certain things. These seam discontinuities crop up pretty often, and people have even sent them in as clues (roads to nowhere, etc.)

So, I will see you Friday at the usual time. Remember Monday we are off so we’ll probably return on the Wednesday after that…

Solution to “Hershey Kiss”

Yep, that’s two National Parks in a row. Maybe a third on Wednesday? Well, maybe not. In any case, most people didn’t have too many problems with this one. Average time was around 10 minutes. Mike Z’s original clues were going to have something like: “Basalt and Danish Hall”. His explanation:

Basalt is a kind of rock. A danish is a kind of roll. With that you have “Rock and Roll Hall” which is a reference to the Rock and Roll hall of fame in Cleveland. The location of the clue is actually between Cleveland and Akron. This one contains a couple potential red herrings as there are a few towns and other geographical places that are named Basalt or Danish.

Coming up with “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” from the word clues wasn’t hard, but finding the II from just that would have probably proved very difficult because there is a lot of space between Cleveland and Akron. So I decided to focus on the park instead.

I think I am in the minority of never having been to Ohio. Well, I haven’t really been east of Kansas really, unless you count Boston and New York for a week each. Brian G:

Quick one today! Only a couple minutes. Familiar with the Cleveland area, so I knew to go there right away. I’m interested to hear the original clues!

And Ken S:

I found it quickly. I’ve been to Cleveland many times. 6 minutes

Jim M decided to make the game more interesting and find his own numbers:

Didn’t start until after the clue drop - so it made much easier for me - about ten minutes to find it.

However, before finding the “two” I also found, in the same general area, a roman numeral three.

Not as clean as the two, but it caught my eye.

That was pretty cool. A lot of people note that they “find” new potential clues while playing the game, which is something that I’m thankful for as it keeps fresh clue submissions coming in.

I had included the road in the clue shot so I figured people would pick that out once they had the general location, and Jarret R did just that:

Took about 10 minutes of roaming around the park looking for horizontal roads.

Some other comments. Katie N wrote:

I guessed that it was in the National Park because of all the trees, and not somewhere else in the county. I searched around for a while, and was about to wait for a clue drop when I saw it.

Daniel M:

That was way too easy. It literally took me about 3 minutes. Just typed “Cuyahoga” in Google and got a bunch of listings for Ohio. Turns out there’s a Cuyahoga National Park that shows up at 6/15 visibility on the map image. Too easy.

Tim R:

Simple google search led me to the cuyahoga county Ohio. From there I figured it
was probably in Cuyahoga National Park. Took me about 10 mins. Now, time for class.

Justin:

I googled “Cuyahoga” and got found out it is a county in Ohio. Then while I was searching in that area I saw Cuyahoga Valley National Park and I found it in there. It took about 10-15 minutes.

I did search on Google, but I figured there would be enough ambiguity that not everyone would go to the park right away.

Mark G got the solution and also sent in the following note:

I like nachos.

I certainly do too! But the cheese makes me poopoo funny sometimes…

Steve M sent a weather report from Oregon with his solution. Yeah, it has been blastingly hot here, though that’s normal since I basically live in a desert that is only green because we steal all the water from Northern Cal and the Colorado River. Although we HAVE had a crapload of rain this year, more than Seattle up till now.

I found it pretty quick in about 10 min but i also had both clues . I came in a little late on this one. P.S today is one of our first sunny and hot days here in Eugene Oregon this year.

Man, I would like to move to Oregon. Or Washington. Or Idaho. Anyhow… Ok, see you all Wednesday at 9

Solution to “Two Much Fun”

I am having some problems with my web connection today, so I’m putting up this solution while I still can. But regardless, this seemed to be a fairly good clue. I’ve never been to Craters of the Moon Nat Park, but it’s on my list of parks to visit. About 6 years back, I actually went and purchased a National Parks Pass for like $50 and then proceeded to visit about 12 of them on a trip from California to Colorado, including Mesa Verde, Bryce, Arches, etc. It actually saved quite a bit, because I think the entry fee prices have skyrocketed, I think Bryce was like $15 or something. Anyhow, some of you have been to Craters of the Moon. Angie S says:

I had a lucky advantage with this one. My husband and I accidently came upon Craters of the Moon on a car trip a few months back. So I immediately started there. With a little wondering around I found it. I’d say it took 15 minutes. PS - Craters is really weird and cool. Worth checking out

I actually have been to both Crater Lake in Oregon and Meteor Crater in Arizona, which is where quite a people went to first as I suspected they might. There were other craters that people visited also. Katie N. wrote:

This took me about 30 minutes. I first checked Crater Lake National Park and then the Lunar Crater in Nevada before I discovered the Craters of the Moon National Park.

Shawn D. said:

Took about 20 minutes after trying to color match areas around Crater Lake, the Barringer Crater, and all of the craters around Winslow, AZ.

Many people found it only after a short search, I guess this one was not as tough. Tina wrote:

That was fun. Took me a few minutes to figure out the park. Took longer to actually find the seahorse.

Josh C notes:

This was a fun one, took about 5-7 min. My own private Idaho, google Idaho craters, follow 93/26 southwest from Arco, wander around the dirt for a few minutes.

Brian G:

The Craters of the Moon place looks pretty cool. Nice and easy clue today, after not much time to spend on the ones earlier this week. About 5 minutes.

And a few took a couple minutes longer. Mike M writes:

Got a late start, but still only took 10 minutes. Looked in Crater Lake, OR before finding the Craters of the Moon Nat’l Monument.

Jason C:

Took about 2 mins…after the region clue drop. Didn’t consider the whole clue at first, went looking around Meteor Crater here in AZ, that also fit in with the surrounding topography of the pic. Total search time: 1 hr and 2 mins

And Michael J:

Took longer than it should have. Tried all sorts of plays on the words, such as combined sounds, words like luna, lunar, desert, hidden. Can’t believe it took me over 30 minutes to think of Craters of the Moon Nat. Momument.

Well, I’m still thinking about doing a multi-clue extravaganza. I think if we do one it could be maybe sometime after Memorial Day. I was thinking people would go out of town during the holiday so they wouldn’t get to play… so anyway, yeah if you haven’t seen it yet please leave comments about having a “Real” Scavengeroogle Hunt See you all Monday at 9!

Solution to “The Seahorse”

Those that joined in after 9:45 PDT missed out a big goof by me. My apologies for the screwup with the pants picture that didn’t load. Or maybe I should have just said I was testing to see if everyone was awake, hehe.

Regardless, of that TWO people actually solved the clue without even using the picture! I had to laugh like hell. Chris R, who is often first or near first in solutions every time, said:

The pictures not loading…. but didn’t need it.

Man, that is one scavengeroogler. And Mike M, who is similarly fast in solutions said:

the map wouldnt load, but I knew where to look and was able to get it.

This is amazing that the main focus of the game, which is having a graphical clue to know what to look for, isn’t actually necessary all the time! This sort of tells me that the word clues are as important as I thought, even more important than the actual picture at times! I mean, theoretically I could just say “I’m looking for a picture of a Bowl Of Soup somewhere in Kansas” and someone could probably find it! Interesting. I’m not going to do that, but still very interesting.

This was extremely difficult to find a word clue. I knew that anything mentioning “Cherokee Expressway” would be too easy, because the expressway isn’t that long and the clue is so large. But when I was researching “The Trail of Tears”, it wasn’t immediately apparent that the end of the trail (in Tahlequah, by the way) would be enough information, and that even to say the clue was northwest of it would leave a huge area to search. I thought saying “Tulsa” would also be too easy because you can nearly see the clue just from looking at a satellite of Tulsa. This was tough.

I’d also like to mention that I don’t know nearly enough about the tribulations that Native Americans have gone through (except that it was truly horrible), but that I’ve always wanted to read more about it someday. Mark G writes:

When I was a teenager I learned that I was part Cherokee. So I know the story of the “Trail of Tears” fairly well. I searched for a map of the trail and it ended just SE of Tulsa, OK. That’s where I started my scrolling binge around Tulsa and found it about 10 minutes later. I’ve never been so happy to see some other dude’s pants in my life.

Phil M used a method that I find helpful sometimes, which is the side to side sweep, especially if there is something in the clue such as a road that is at a particular angle:

This has to be one of the tougher ones that I had seen. I have been trying to figure out this since early in the day. I had the right area (Tulsa) butI just couldnt seem to find the “Pants”. I used a side to side search to find this one. I like these tough ones.

I do like the tough ones as well, but to avoid my the “my ass being kicked” scenario I try to make them at least somewhat doable.

Jason C did the right thing and actually looked for freeways. I thought more ppl might try this way, but I believe that I didn’t include enough of the double lane freeway in the graphical clue. Dang.

Took about 45 mins. Checked along all the freeways in Tulsa and somehow missed it and found it while doing a more thorough search.

Mike Z got it just before the bell:

Found it just in time. I figured out Tahlequah, OK at the very beginning, but just knowing that it was somewhere NW of Tahlequah had me searching lots of areas. Actually, I can’t figure out why I didn’t come across this sooner considering it’s right in Tulsa. I thought I searched that first. Oh, well.

Truthfully, I’m not going to disallow your solution if it’s a couple minutes after the deadline. In this case, where it was my fault the picture wasn’t posted, I’d take the solution an hour after.

Well, I guess it’s back to the drawing board for me. Hopefully, Friday’s clue at 10 PDT will be not as bad! Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I gotta launch that one an hour later cause I got some stuff to do in the morning… see ya then!

Solution to “His And Hers Pants”

A nice number of solutions for this one, and not many red herrings. One thing I predicted for this clue was that the “Mr. Packer” part of the clue was definitely not enough for most people to solve it and thus I added “see you” as the kicker at the end. What I wasn’t prepared for was how many actually got it just from the “see you” part of the clue and didn’t even use Packer! Josh C was the only person to figure out that part of the reference, since he had been there:

As soon as I saw “See You” I knew it, CU Boulder. Ate at the Alferd Packer Memorial Grill when my wife went to check out their grad school.Oh and the Sickle Cell is so named because it looks like a Sickle, or a Crescent Moon.

So yeah, according to JCP, CU is probably the only college to have a eating place named after a cannibal… I believe I should have changed it to “A. Packer” instead of “Mr. Packer”. Here are various people who didn’t need that part of the clue:

Golux13:

5 minutes. I got the “see you”-CU reference immediately, and confirmed it with the clue drop. The rest of the clue didn’t help me at all — I still don’t get it — so I just scanned around Boulder until I found it.

Tonia:

Easiest one ever, I think I got lucky. I just put “cu packer” in google and got a link to University of Colorado-Boulder. I put it in the map and there it was. Max time- 5 minutes.

Brian G:

Not sure about the Mr. Packer line, but “see you” meant Boulder to me (as a former Big 12 guy). About 5 minutes today, which is good for work productivity. Pretty small building, I think I just got lucky finding it this quick.

Mike Z:

I got started really late on this one and I have no clue what the main part of the clue means. When I saw the “see you” on the end, I immediately thought of CU and after a short scan of Boulder near CU, there it was.

Shawn D:

Took about 15 minutes. Still don'’t get the Mr. Packer part of the clue. Reference to Billy Packer? Thanks for all your hard work.

Brian M:

I dont get the Mr. Packer part of the clue, the part that helped me was “SEE YOU”. Took about 5 min.

Jenny:

7 minutes. Figured that see you should be CU and then just looked around there.

JoJo:

The CU led me to Boulder Colorado and I really just stumbled upon when looking around. I still don’t understand the rest of the clue. 20 mins.

Also, I KNEW that people would think Green Bay but I left that in. Chris R:

Went to Green Bay first….. then figured it out.

Michael J:

Packer confused me… thought Green Bay but the sat images were not high res. On a whim tried Boulder because of CU. Turned out to be too easy, but I think it was luck. About 5 minutes.

Jason C:

Took about 2 mins, the “see you” made me go directly to Boulder for “CU-Boulder”. If not for that I probably would have started in Green-Bay Wisc, give the Packer clue.

Lastly, I was a bit disappointed that only one person got super magic bonus points, and he had to use google to do it (though Mike Z and Josh C DID come up with the correct literal meaning of the clue, that a person who has sickle cell anemia has cells shaped like a crescent) . But I was looking for what Jim M said:

Elliot Smith lyric - didn’t know it, though, had to google it. So I don’t think I deserve the bonus points.

All right, we are shaping up to have Mon - Wed - Fri clue releases from now on. I think that’s a good enough schedule, often enough that y’all come back but not so frequent that it makes me cragee. Yes, cragee as a fox. See you Wed at 9 …

Solution to “Moon Is A Sickle Cell”

I knew this one would be harder because I had such a hard time finding it even with the answer! Although the Dynamic Duo seemed to get it quite easily. I think one of the main problems was that there were so many golf courses around Louisville. I didn’t know that golfing was such a hot sport in Kentucky…

Mike Z, who submitted the clue admitted it was a bit tough, especially because the Valhalla reference was not immediately found in results by googling the clue. I thought that part wasn’t too bad, but still added “gloriously” as a clue drop later to help out. The hardest part was finding it once the location was known. Shawn D, who has actually been to the golf course before, notes:

Toughie, I never would have gotten this one without the geo clue, and I’ve played Valhalla Golf Course before. I got started late, so I got all the clues up front. From there it took about 15 minutes.

Some people were able to find the answer without even using major parts of the clue. Brian G:

I still have no clue what any of the word clues mean. I just stumbled on the Long Run Golf Course/Road near Louisville once you gave out that clue. I was all over the place on this one from Soledad, CA (soul + dead) to Marathon, FL (long run). Off and on for a couple hours for me…

That is pretty creative thinking for soledad and marathon… I might save those for another session, hehe. Golux 13 brought up an issue with googlemaps itself that I’ve had problems with before myself:

Time to solve: Way too long. I figured out the “Valhalla” part of the clue early and looked in Louisville for Valhalla Golf Club, but thanks to Google Maps’ inability to put a map marker anywhere near the thing it’s supposed to be marking, I could not find the actual Valhalla Golf Club, and thus went on a wild chase around the map for other “ghost” or “haunted” golf clubs. When I saw the clue drop, I went back and searched the map again, and after about 5-10 more minutes found what I needed.

I find that I often have to repeatedly switch between “citymap” and “satellite” views in order to try find things, and yes I often don’t trust Googlemaps markers at all. It is also difficult sometimes because the actual words don’t appear on things like golf courses unless you’re zoomed in to a certain degree. I found myself zooming in to any little green area on the “citymap” view to try find the golf course in question.

I think the “region” clue drop idea is a good one, and I’ll keep that up for now. Chris R wrote:

Whew… i definitely needed the second clue on this one. Spent a lot of time in New Orleans for some reason.

A common pattern was actually deciphering the word clues correctly but having trouble with the actual locating of ET. Tina wrote:

Took a little while to actually find him once I figured out the clue. Maybe 20 minutes.

and Katie N said:

It took me about 15 minutes. After a long time of looking around I finally came across the Long Run golf course.

JoJo went a herring huntin’ for awhile before finding the correct solution:

This one was tough. Places I looked before I found it: Gettysburg Golf Course, Big Run GC (next to Long Run creek), Bull Run GC, and searched all of both the Valhalla and Long Run GC’s before I finally just followed Long Run road. 1.5 hours.

Mark G got to the answer in this slightly roundabout way:

Excellent clue! I found Valhalla golf course fairly quickly. But not until I put in directions to “Long Run” Baptist church did I find what I was looking for. Probably took a half hour overall. Keep up the great work!

And of course many people are playing during work again like Steve M. Hey it’s a Friday, ain’t it:

i found the clue 5 min after you told me the city and state, now i can get some work done and make the boss happy.

OK, I don’t know if your finals are done or if they are coming up. But anyhow, congrats if you are done and good luck if they are coming up… man, I wish there was a major for Scavengeroogling. See you Monday morning at 9!

Solution to “ET And His Shadow”

Hehe, thanks for all your emails. I do complain a little too much… don’t mind me! =)

Well, I think this one was definitely a little easier on the brain. Still, I thought it was a good clue. Angry clown! Scares me.

By the way… does anyone know what this clue is, or is it just some random building…

I belatedly noticed there was a town called Broken Arrow near Tulsa as well as the expressway itself, which probably made it even easier for a few. Robert M wrote:

Guess I got lucky with this one. Immediately thought of broken arrow and googled it to find Broken Arrow, OK, then I found the highway and it was easy from there. Maybe 1 minute.

And Golux 13 made a similar connection:

Time to solve: ~2 minutes (”Busted Aero” was pretty easy to translate into “Broken Arrow,” and a quick Google search gave me Broken Arrow, OK. The angle of the highway through town convinced me I had the right place, and it took me about 20 seconds to slide along the highway until I saw Grumpo the Clown.)

I noticed the highway angle as well. That’s cool when people use the area surrounding the main part of the graphical clue or the color of the clue to help figure it out. Some people also tried out the clown insurance angle for kicks. Scotty B:

Took about 20 minutes, I was looking way too deep into the clues.

I thought the insurance thing might have been about Hartford, CT, and then something about the Boston (busted) Post (aeropostale) Road (highway).

and Mike Z:

An easy one. I sure wouldn’t have gotten this with “Do you want to buy clown insurance?” By the way, I had never heard of Broken Arrow Expressway before.

Regarding the clown insurance, that was supposed to be a reference to the fact that there is a road near the clown called “State Farm Road” or something. I was going to use that in combination with broken arrow, but decided not to because I could see how it would be an extremely bloody herring!

Lastly, it is good to see the “working” Scavengeroogles are still playing once in awhile. Fight the power, peeps. Mark G:

This is the first one I’ve gotten within a minute… My boss will be happy I’m not wasting my day

Well, I thought I’d be free tomorrow but looks like that’s not the case. Clues shall return this coming Friday morning. For those of you who are finishing up finals, I hope they went well!

Solution to “Angry Clown!”

As opposed to the previous three clues, this one was blastingly hard! Absolutely no solutions at the halfway point. I can claim some innocence here; those were the word clues as given by Charlie…

I was originally going to change the clue to something like “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Mon” but I think that may have been even worse!

The clue drops seemed to help somewhat, but not nearly enough. This was just a hard clue through and through.

So, does anyone know what the spiral thing(s) in the middle of the track are? I was wondering if it was just decoration or what.

I had seriously underestimated how many other “Monmouth”s there were around the country. JoJo says:

Got started on this one after the 2nd clue drop. Only took a couple of minutes to get Monmouth but a google search led me to Illinois. And it wasn’t till I saw monmouth park racetrack that it became easy. Only took about 20 minutes but that was after the helpful 2nd clue.

and Justin says:

It took me a long time, around an hour off and on. After the clue drops I looked up towns called Monmouth, and then I searched for horse tracks in towns called Monmouth, and it was pretty easy from there.

I thought the “oval-ness” of the surrounding area might help, but Michael J notes:

Very frustrating. I had Monmouth for a loooong time and finally found the grass color from the pic in Monmouth country, NJ. Checked out the city of Colts Neck and the surrounding area, and couldn’t believe how many oval tracks there were. Guess it must have been a horse track. Overall, before and after the clue drop, total time about 45 minutes.

I was wondering if anyone would try the accent as a clue. Shawn D:

About 5 minutes. Started out in Jamaica, N.Y. at the mouth of the river. Then I took a different take with Monmouth University (thank you March Madness)…

But only a few got it that quickly. JCP said:

Found it in about 5 minutes. If you live in the area (I live in NYC, cousins in NJ), theres no way you could not know this given the clue.

So it seems the majority of solutions came at a cost timewise. Here are other comments:

Tim R:

I worked on and off for three hours. I probably spent between 1.5-2 hrs working on
this.

Mike M:

more than an hour……turns out I didn’t need the “horses” clue, just realized it was monmouth university

Chris R:

Wow. For some reason that was tough. Didn’t get the Monmouth connection for a long
time.

Dang, the perfect “15 minute average” clue continues to elude. Anyhow, thank you for playing and for sticking through the tough ones. One note: I’ll return on Wednesday morning with a new clue. Have a good break in the meantime!

Solution to “Spiral Stairs”

Ok, this was definitely too easy. I DID check to see how the map would come up if someone typed in Fate, TX but I didn’t count on the clue standing out so much (being white) and people making the quick connection to Rockwall. I seriously don’t try to make ‘em easy. It’s more I’m trying not too make ‘em too hard!

By the way, as to what this actually is, Shawn D. lives like 2 blocks away from it:

I got started late on this one and it ends up being in my home town. This is what used to be the Church on the Rock, now it is Lakeside Baptist Church. It’s huge, seats about 3500.

Wow, that is a big church indeed!

I think a mistake in the word clues was capitalizing “Fate” and maybe I should have said something more ambiguous like “Stonewall met his fate” or something. Scott’s original two ideas were “Stonewall Jackson” by itself and something about “30 on Fate” (I-30 is one of the highways near there). He wasn’t sure if either would be enough info and I agreed and so combined them. That turned out to be a mistake!

Also, I probably shouldn’t have said it was IN Texas, although I just think it’s funny that many of the clues sent in and the ones I pick are from Texas. Not nearly enough people tried to connect “Stonewall Jackson” into the mix. Some selected responses:

Michael J:
Too easy. Took 2 minutes… checked Fate, TX and immediately saw Rockwall.

Robert M:
Pretty quick. First thought of Stonewall Jackson and looked at his hometown of Clarksburg, WV, bur figured out that was wrong pretty quick.

Eric W actually knows the place:
Under a minute. As soon as I heard Stonewall Texas I was transported to many happy summers at my grandparents’ house on the lake in Rockwall. Mapped Rockwall then saw Fate, TX not too far away (Never heard of this town before) then saw the circular shape from pretty far out. I don’t know what the thing is and I suspect I’ve never been there.

Mike Z:
I’m not kidding about the one minute time. I put in Fate, Texas and saw Rockwall to the left, switched to satellite and there it was. It’s amazing how that yesterday I was totally cluelss all day and today I get it immediately.

Brian G:
Didn’t realize there was a Fate, TX. The previous clues have me looking for puns or synonyms for everything. About 20 minutes today…

Andy K:
The clue of TX outside the actual clue was a lifesaver for this one. Both are cities in TX, however one is in a rural region. Took 10 min.

Tonia:
It took me about 15 minutes to get this one. I got thrown off by Stonewall and was searching in Jackson, Tx. Then in Stonewall, LA. Finally, I searched Fate, Tx and found it.

JoJo A:
Figured Fate was a city in Texas. Searched for it in google maps and saw Rockwall to the left of it. Took about 2 minutes, which is cool cuz this is the first one I have actually solved.

Angie S:
The clue was way too easy. I got it in one minute maybe. When we already knew it was in Texas, looking for a Fate, Texas was the obvious first step. Finding a town called Rockwall to the immediate left sealed it for me.

Phil M:
I feel that the clue was a bit too easy. Searched for Fate, TX and noticed the city of Rockwall. I then found it in about 30 seconds.

Bill C:
easiest one yet took about 3 mins.

Golux:
How long: 20 minutes, of which the first 7 or 8 were wasted in looking in Jackson, MS (”Stonewall Jackson”) before realizing you had said the pic was in Texas. D’oh!

Well, I hope it wasn’t such a bummer to find the answer so quickly. It really varies, though I think this one had the strongest number of responses that said it was too easy. Hopefully that will improve next week. By the way, I am probably going to need to do clues every other day or so for awhile as I got a ton of work to do in next month or so. So, just check the “Next Launch” up at top for information on when the next one will come up, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Solution to “Baby Rattle”

This seemed to be a pretty average clue… not exceedingly tough but hard enough that not everyone got it right away. Many have actually been to the Corn Palace I guess, or have heard of it. I think I heard of it on TV (travel channel?) Here are some of the responses:

Paul D:

I had heard about a Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD so I thought I would start there. It took me about 2 minutes after that.

Ken S:

In 1982, I visited the Corn Palace in Mitchel, SD. Just a matter of time before I found it.

Max D:

I remembered the corn palace from an article I read a long time ago. Took me awhile to hunt down the city, though, and the path was none to close to the palace! Fortunately, the color match on the photos kept me in the right town.

Total time ~ 40 minutes. Time in Sioux City ~ 10.

Yeah, I have noticed that it can be supremely important to note the “color” of the clue background… this can help in rejecting possible locations sometimes. Michael J. thought May 5 might have something to do with it:

This is funny. First I tried using the Spanish versions of the three words, no luck… I was thinking Cinco de Mayo. Then tried “prints”, corn festivals, corn museums, etc… finally after about 30 minutes figured out “Corn Castle”, which I remembered as the incorrect name of Corn Palace.

Some actually lived in the vicinity of the Corn Palace. Ryan said:

Took me around 15 seconds to understand the clue, but then I live about 60 miles away from Mitchell so the corn palace isn’t a new thing to me. Took about 10 minutes to find the dang bell tho.

It is good to see people taking “mini-breaks” from working to play Scavengeroogle. Life’s too short, enjoy it a little! Like Jeremy R.:

Less than 10 minutes…good thing since I’m supposed to be working!

Or, I liked this particular comment from Josh C. Dude, nothing wrong with sleeping in. Sleep is greatly underrated…

First time I’ve checked out the page before the deadline (I sleep late) it was fun to find it “in time”

Others got a hankering for corn after the clue. Interestingly, I just had corn yesterday! Canned, unfortunately. I do like me a good corn on the cob. Brian G:

Thankfully, I’ve heard of this place before, so I knew to head to Mitchell. About 10 minutes browsing around there. I need to get out there some time and have some corn…

Argh, I know I promised Double Clue Fun Friday tomorrow, but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do that. Not that we’re lacking for any clue submissions! Thank you all for them, by the way. I might have to be out in the afternoon which is when I was planning for the bonus Scavenger clue. I guess we will see, but you’ll definitely get your daily 9 a.m. PDT. fix. See you later, corn. Haha.

Solution to “Ring My Bell”

Unfortunately, as I suspected this clue has already been noted before. This was the reason I stopped the clue early. Sorry…egg on my face. I did search the pearljam site for “ships” but for some reason it didn’t come up. Greg J notes:

This is a link off of pearljam’s Interesting Google Maps Page. Under Virginia (Mothball Fleet). Took less than a minute to solve this one.

It was only a matter of time before there was duplication. But, PLEASE check your clue submissions on the various googlemap sites to see if they are already found, especially if they are famous places. I can’t always catch them… this one slipped through the cracks.

Well, so this wasn’t the hardest of clues for many. I actually thought it might be tougher because since I live on the West Coast and am not so familiar with East Coast geography… I actually had no idea where the James River was until it was pointed out to me. I suspect this is like someone saying they don’t know where the Grand Canyon is. Duh again I guess!

This was also a sort of experiment to see how much easier a clue is to find when it is visible from very far out, as in 8/15 or so. I believe it is MUCH easier, and if you have gotten the word clues mostly right I think it is almost inevitable to stumble across it, unlike clues at 14/15. Shawn D. echoes this thought:

Got this in about ten minutes. Pure luck. I still don’t get the clue but when I put ships and James together I thought of Jamestown Virginia. Keep up the good work.

I have gotten many decent clue submissions that are zoomed out 8/15 or farther so I wanted to see how one of them fared. Seems like I might stay away from them for now, unless they are spectacular. Although, I would REALLY like to use some non-U.S. clues someday (some of you have also mentioned this) and other countries are definitely not zoomed all the way in. We’ll just have to wait until Google gets more maps. =)

I didn’t know so many people would pick up that “R” meant “river”. Michael W speaks for many:

Once I saw the clue I just assumed that James R. meant the James river in Virginia. Took about 5 minutes to find.

I’d be curious to know how many non East Coast people knew right away that James R. was the James River in Virginia. Eric W. writes:

Got it! I just saw water and James R and guessed the James River. I don’t have a clue what the Tormentor bit means, could we get an explanation?

“Tormentor” was supposed to be “Lake Tormentor” which is due south of the ships location. I liked the name of the lake so I included it, and also thought it might help in locating where on the James. But most didn’t even use it!

Other people got a little tangled with my mentioning of synonyms and homonyms and other goodies. (I do love me some puns!) I meant in GENERAL that’s a good idea… not for this specific clue. =) Andy K:

the whole synonym thing threw me off. replaced ‘tormentor’ with ‘pirate’ and searched ‘james’ and ‘pirate’. obviously wrong. very clever combining lake and river names. took approximately 30 min.

We are set for around 9 a.m. PDT. tomorrow again. But please check the notice at the top of the site at least once to make sure. Sometimes there’s some last minute stuff I need to fix before launching it up. Shiver me timbers…

Solution to “You Sank My Battleships!”

In a fit of unintentional synchronicity, several things came smashing together in this clue. I swear I didn’t plan it that way. So “Bones Brigade” was this group of skaters (they also made some videos called Bones Brigade) that had some pretty famous members in it, including Tony Hawk who is from… San Diego. And though it was meant for everyone to derive “eggo” from “Leggo my Eggo”, some picked up “legoland” instead… which has a park located 30 min north of San Diego!

I think the reference to “waffle commercials” confused people more than helped. It was supposed to help people trigger the phrase “leggo my eggo” in their memories, but in fact I might be the only one who remembers those commercials! I have to stop inserting 80s nostalgia in these clues…

The original clue which Brian was going to give was just : “Dusty Waffle”… I thought that would be way too hard to get “Sandy Eggo” from that so changed “dusty” to “sandy” and added the freeway number to it.

The average time was about 20 minutes. Of course, there were ringers like James C:

3 mins. No prior knowledge

It’s pretty crazy how sometimes you happen to solve some clues almost instantly and others take hours. Brian G. went in this direction:

Sandy Waffle? Was definitely confused there… Was looking in Sandy, UT!

I had originally meant “take 5″ to mean take the 5 freeway. I think there was some confusion about the “San Diego Fwy” which is the 405, when I actually meant “Take the 5 freeway to San Diego”. Sorry! Also, I knew some would think Dave Brubeck, but Chris R. also notes:

Googled “take 5″ and got a boyband from orlando. no bones in orlando. Reevaluated and put together “sandy waffle” = “sandy eggo”. clever.

Eric W found the solution after some searching and he notes:

I’m going to make a lot of money someday opening a clinic for scavengeroogle addicts like myself.

I’m glad you all enjoy playing… I’ve been thinking about clues so much that last night I actually had a dream that I was fending off irate email from Scavengeroogle addicts. I kid you not!

I like this 9 in the morning clue launch schedule we are getting into. It makes me wake up a little earlier, if anything. Therefore, we should be on for something around the same time, 9 a.m. PDT., tomorrow. Later, skater.

Solution to “Bones Brigade”